barmar@mit-eddie.UUCP (Barry Margolin) (04/05/84)
I use to play Cosmic Encounters alot when I was an MIT student (until this past summer). I wasn't very good, but then I never was very good at strategy games. However, the great thing about Cosmic is that it is still lots of fun, no matter how you do. We extended the rules to make the game more exciting. Generally each player had about three alien powers, and could exercise the abilities of all the powers in a turn. Many of our games ended in a real flurry of excitement. Cosmic Zaps fly back and forth, and players time warp to get in final turns. We have had a number of games that looked like they were about to end, when someone plays the card (whose name I forget) that makes everyone trade in their powers. One time it looked like the game was going to go on for another hour (it had already been going for several hours), but one of the players wanted to go home, so he played a card that no one knew he had, and the game was over about ten minutes later. Too bad we can't play Cosmic over the net. -- Barry Margolin ARPA: barmar@MIT-Multics UUCP: ..!genrad!mit-eddie!barmar
jrrt@hogpd.UUCP (R.MITCHELL) (04/05/84)
Ah, my all-time favorite game! I'm used to playing with all 9 expansion sets, with 2 hidden powers per player. Among my favorite combinations are: Mesmer/Vulch, Judge/Wrack, and Silencer/Negator. I once won the National CE championship as the Super Mesmer, with the Wild Clone in my hand. I had a fist full of Edict and Flare cards, none of which I had to discard (thanks to the Wild Clone)...In a word, I was awesome. On the other end of the spectrum, I've played in games where winning depended more on fast-talk than on meager holdings. (Imagine the Calculator, with a hand full of 6's, playing against the Mind...) I like games that are very interactive, are relatively unstructured, encourage quick thinking and precise timing, and don't take themselves too seriously. All the Eon Products games are like that (kudos to them for Badlands, Quirks, and Hoax), but Comic Encounters (as we call it) is the best. Rob "Dragon/Pirate" Mitchell
wayne@bambi.UUCP (Wayne Wilner) (04/06/84)
I played a lot of Cosmic Encounter several years ago in Silicon Valley. We discovered that Anti-Matter was nearly invincible, so we took to dealing out powers, stud-style: one is dealt five powers and keeps one, two, or three of them. Another observation: some powers (such as Empath) are very strong in two-player games and nearly useless with more players. If you haven't tried two-player games, they're worth while.